You cannot serve God and mammon.
Lk 16:1-13
The situation
The master or owner lived elsewhere. He had a steward or administrator who can enter into agreement on behalf of his master (power or attorney?).
Charging of interest was forbidden by the OT. In order to skirt this prohibi-tion, only the sum of the principal and the interest appeared in the document (a sort of I.O.U.).
vv. 1-2. A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, 'What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.'
The steward was accused of squandering the property of the master, not of any dishonesty.
The Greek word for “reported” meant “accusing someone with hostile in-tent”. The steward could have been innocent but the master believed the report.
vv. 3-4. The steward said to himself, 'What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.'
The steward did not waste time engaging in self-pity. He studied the situation and took decisive action.
vv. 5-7. He called in his master's debtors one by one. To the first he said, 'How much do you owe my master?' He replied, 'One hundred measures of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.' Then to another he said, 'And you, how much do you owe?' He replied, 'One hundred kors of wheat.' He said to him, 'Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.'
The steward re-wrote the I.O.U.’s of the debtors. He removed the interest and left only the principal.
In today’s terms, the oil owed was somewhere between 210 and 450 liters. It was reduced to somewhere between 105 to 225 liters.
The grains owed (using volume and not weight) was somewhere between 21,000 to 45,000 liters. It was reduced to somewhere between 10,500 to 22,500 liters.
The amount owed show that the debtors were probably merchants and not tenants.
v. 8. And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. "For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.
The master here is the rich man. He praises the steward for his prudence. Here prudence is to be understood as practical action toward a particular end and does not necessarily refer to virtue.
v. 9. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
We are told by Jesus that we (the children of light) must be at least as clever and enthusiastic about the things of heaven as the children of this world are about the things of earth.
The Greek words translated here and in verse 11 as "dishonest wealth" is lit-erally, "mammon of iniquity." Mammon is the Greek transliteration of a Hebrew or Aramaic word that is usually explained as meaning "that in which one trusts."
vv. 10-12. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustwor-thy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?
Jesus urges constant fidelity as an absolute requirement for those in positions of responsibility.
v. 13. No servant can serve two masters. 8 He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
Dependence on wealth is opposed to the teachings of Jesus who insists on complete dependence on the Father as an important characteristic of the Christian disciple (Luke 12:22-39). A disciple must give complete and exclusive loyalty to God or he runs the risk of being enslaved by mammon. One shows this loyalty to God by sharing mammon (wealth) with others.
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